Those spaces between the words

I look at this white page before me and realize how much I look forward to it. For me the blank page is like the second before taking my first tiny bite of creme brulee, or the time just before my favorite author's newest book comes out. It is filled with anticipation, excitement, and joy. It is the harbinger of immense possibilities lying before me just waiting for first word to fall, the start of a new life born out of my mind to step into the world and take its first breath. Before I could write I still had the stories, but now they are in black and white they seem to take on more substance.

I cannot quote myself accurately and that used to bother me until I went to a reading given by a poet I admire and it was exactly that -- a reading! Watching her I first understood why I cannot memorize my own work. The words are too important. Not to you most likely, but to me. I sometimes spend an incredible amount of time picking just the right word, the difference being similar to that of adding a quarter teaspoon of salt, or a eighth of a teaspoon of chili powder. One is just salty soup, tasty maybe, but not what I wanted. The other is chili, exactly what I wanted.

Likewise I realize that it is what I do not say that is sometimes the most important thing of all. Those spaces between the words, those unseen comments floating above and beyond the sentences are the flesh lying upon the bones of my writing. If they aren't there I am not really touching my reader's consciousness. It is the difference between Dick and Jane's mindless escapades and finally getting to read Hot as Summer Cold as Winter in third grade. I still remember the day I read it.

It is these spaces that can cause me so much anguish in my life, because I read them in other people's writing too and the problem with reading between the lines can be misinterpretation due to translation difficulties. Think of smiles. Now think of that Cheshire cat who still haunts my nightmares, and Bozo the clown and Stephen King's clowns and throw in a baby's genuine whole body smile. There's a whole lot of interpretation going on in that word smile.

Now I try to let all my feelings simmer a while before I act upon them, allow the stew to develop its own full bodied flavor so to speak. (Maybe because it is the day after Thanksgiving and I am still stuffed that all my analogies seem to be coming back to food?) I often discover that either the writer did not mean what I inferred, or he changed his mind before he wrote again. Either way I am happy to have waited.

As you can see I have managed to create a whole life around writing (and reading). I cannot imagine it any other way.